The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

"The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" combines the three original featurettes based on A.A. Milne's original Pooh stories (the first two of which were produced under Walt Disney's guidance) with some new brief linking segments and a new, touching epilogue. Although ultimately Americanised, the original wit and tone of A.A. Milne is captured well, something that a lot of subsequent Disney Pooh product can't claim. Adapting E.H. Shepard's lovely illustrations with a touch of the Disney style, it contains so many wonderful, whimsical moments - Pooh getting stuck in Rabbit's front door, Piglet being blown away by the wind, Tigger shocking Pooh with tales of hefalumps and woozles - plus a wonderful array of tunes from the Sherman Brothers songbook.

The supposed original intention with the Pooh property was to produce a feature, but was eventually reconfigured as a running series of featurettes with the option of compiling them to create a feature-length release. Re-combining the shorts into a feature was seen as a sort of tribute to Walt Disney's original intention, but it does ultimately seem a bit disconnecting. In particular, the style and quality of the later "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too" segment doesn't quite match that of the two preceding chapters. As a result, I do think the three segments perhaps work a bit better as shorts of their own, but nonetheless, the material is utterly charming and still works reasonably well in a feature compilation format. Worth a look.

This is easily one of Disney's best animated movies. A good range of characters each with different qualities so they can bring out different things in each viewer. There are a lot of songs in this movie but all of them are enjoyable and relate to the story. People of all ages can sit and watch this film together and not get bored as everyone can enjoy it and it gives adults the perfect excuse to switch off for a while and remember a time when things were easier. Also even the youngest children can sit through this and not wonder is it nearly finished?, because everything holds the attention. I have seen this movie so many times but it still cheers me up when I'm feeling blue. After all who can resist Winnie the Pooh? A truly excellent, classic movie.

Could you find a nicer, more innocent film than this one? I don't know. I haven't seen one.

What it is, I think, is a compilation of three films woven into one full-length film, movies that were originally done in the mid to late-1960s and then put into this format later. Whatever, it's simply a bunch of nice stories about the famous Pooh and his friends.

This is refreshing in that there is very, very little violence and no evil characters, no bad guys, both of which are unusual in animated films. The stories are told through a "book" which is pictured as the stories unfold. Illustrations are shown in the book and they they come to life to show the particularly story.

The voice of Pooh was done by one of the great voices in Hollywood history: Sterling Holloway. All the characters are quite different and there is nice humor here and there for adults and kids. This is as sweet-natured a film as you could ever find. To some it may sound boring, but it's so different in its approach that it is subtly appealing to all ages. I liked and appreciated it much more on the second viewing then acquired the DVD for the third look.

This is timeless material and very highly recommended for your kids and for you. Almost everyone alive right now remembers these books from childhood and remembers them fondly. If it brings back good memories to you, you'll love this movie.

For many people, the adventures of Winnie the Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Woods represent a pinnacle of childhood. Disney's adaptation has immortalised the best of the classic Milne stories and provided the world with an animated film that remains unsurpassed for its good nature and unadulterated joy.

Three stories have been synthesised for this feature: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. The featurettes are linked by a narrator who nicely blends the lines in this episodic movie. The vocal performances are all excellent, with Sterling Holloway as the tubby bear of the title and Paul Winchell as his bouncy pal, Tigger. Also a standout in the small cast of characters is Eeyore - voiced by Ralph Wright - whose many one liners cater for even the grouchiest of grown ups in the audience.

Disney has added a few neat little touches to Milne's source material, including the Gopher who runs around proclaiming "I'm not in the book, you know!". But the studio has stayed true to the skew logic that is at the heart of these classic stories - and that is why this film works. Watch this one whether you're looking for some good, clean entertainment for the kids or if you just want to return to the happiness of your childhood: it's a great film for everyone.

This film is actually comprised of three earlier featurettes ("Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree", "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day", "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Too"), the first three of the four Disney efforts at filming the world of Winnie The Pooh which (the fourth was "A Day for Eyeore") that were closely based on specific A.A. Milne stories, and were excellently done. Despite not being drawn the way E. H. Sheppard originally illustrated them (which is, perhaps a loss), the characters are played with great respect for the way they were written. They have been Americanized in their speech, and they don't rely so much on the British comedy of manners that Milne mined so successfully, but they are quite solidly the same "people" they were in the books. Sterling Holloway is a marvelous Pooh whose his furry voice seems to convey both his outer softness and his mental fuzziness. Paul Winchell's Tigger is probably an improvement of the original, simply because words alone could never really convey Tigger's manic exuberance the way Winchell's performance does. Ralph Wright's Eyeore is a delight, and the other characters hold their own and uphold their tradition completely.

The one completely un-Milne touch that has been added seems to me entirely acceptable, too. This is the occasional presence, in the story, of the Narrator, whose intervention helps move the characters through some of the more difficult moments. It is a touch of gentleness that is not cloying at all, and is occasionally rather witty.

These stories are genuinely wholesome without being sticky. If you want to feed your kids entertainment that's truly funny, has decent human values, is completely free of potty jokes, and will stand up for 6-year-olds yet won't scare three-year-olds, it doesn't get much better than this.